Body, movement, and outdoor education in pre-school during the covid-19 pandemic: Perceptions of teachers

Abstract

The Italian preschool has a peculiar teaching structure that is based on five fields of experience and teachers must guarantee experiential teaching based on the body and movement So physical activities and sensorimotor experiences should be particularly encouraged as they represent the main way of approaching the fenomena in this stage of development This study aims to detect the opinions of pre-school teachers in order to calibrate the contents and objectives of the permanent training, through a qualitative survey carried out by submitting to preschool teachers specific questionnaires through the Google Modules platform The questionnaire is composed by 28 questions related to: demographic data (1-5), practice of indoor and outdoor physical activity (6-14), safety during the practice of motor activity (15-18), the future practice or possibility of practicing outdoor lessons (19-23), on the psychological impact due to social distancing / closure of gyms (24-26) and on the perception of the importance of physical and motor activity during covid-19 (27-28) The data collected on the perception of teachers with regard to the body and movement field of experience and the adaptations for outdoor motor practice reveal specific training needs in the context of the teaching methods of physical education and the need to provide training actions also outdoor activities, in particular it emerges that with proper permanent training on children’s movement and learning during outdoor free play and including more natural features in the design of outdoor play areas, it could encourage teachers to do more outdoor movement education improving children’s body and movement awareness © JPES